Maximum Security - James Rose's Background Story
by Doctor Interrobang
Summary: From Maximum Security, when they're imprisoned. This is the story of why. Yeah, I suck at summaries. Rated T because I can't remember whether I included cussing or not and I'm too lazy to check. One-shot. Enjoy.


Okay, I decided to write a little one-shot CHERUB fanfic - if you've not read the CHERUB series, start reading it. It's awesome. Anyways, this is about Book Three, Maximum Security. This is their background story as for getting arrested to get into Arizona Max. I did tweak a few details, though. Enjoy.

James Rose sat in the passenger seat of the new Lexus, with a laptop perched on his lap. His older brother Dave had installed sniffer software to find unsecured wireless networks and steal data from them. Dave was currently driving the stolen Lexus around the suburbs of Arizona. James was thirteen, but Dave was two years older, which Dave thought gave him a lot more authority.

A red light blinked on the Acer, which was also stolen. It had picked up a wireless network located in the next street at a motorbike dealership. James opened up a program which randomly guessed the password for any wireless network you set it to try on. It was very reliable and easy - James had discovered from past experience seventy-five per cent of passwords were easily guessed.

'Stop here, Dave,' said James. 'I've got a signal for a bike dealership.' Dave pulled into the next street with the rapidity of a hippopotamus and parked across the road from the dealership. A neon sign read 'Brigands Bike Dealers' above it. James waited for three minutes for the password cracker to come into effect - it turned out the password was merely a space. James began downloading hundred of gigabytes of data onto his laptop - he started poking through the files after the half hour it took to copy them all. One particular file caught his eye - a .txt document named 'CCTV/bike codes'. Dave was looking over his shoulder and saw it too.

'Open that one up,' said Dave gleefully. 'If we can crack the CCTV and steal the bikes, we'll make a packet and nobody'll know it was us!' James double-clicked the document, which opened up a long string of passwords and usernames.

'You look through that,' said James, passing Dave the laptop, 'and I'll case the joint and look for a way in.' James opened the door of the Lexus and climbed out, closing the door quietly. He walked across the road, his sneakers making no sound against the newly-laid tar. He walked around the bike dealership, looking for opened windows or a back door. He got lucky at the alley behind it, seeing an opened window set about two metres up in the wall, but almost certainly leading inside. James walked back to the Lexus, where Dave had finished going through the credentials for the CCTV and bikes and was playing Minecraft while waiting for James to come back to the car with results.

Dave swiftly closed Minecraft when James got in the car.

'Any luck?' Dave questioned.

'Yeah, they have an opened window around the back,' James replied. 'When d'you reckon we should go in?' He opened the glove box and pulled out a Micro Uzi machine pistol. It had few bullets, but if there was anyone inside it would scare them enough. He pulled out two hockey masks after the pistol, which had been crammed in the glove box so tightly one of them had a crack near the eyehole.

'About eleven, nobody'll be around by then,' said Dave, taking the gun from James. 'And if there is anyone, this'll get 'em shaking in their boots.'

*  
It was midnight, later than Dave had planned to break in - they needed to wait until the lights were out and everyone was gone in the bike dealership. Dave had deactivated the CCTV via Acer, and James had memorised the codes to deactivate the bikes' alarms when tampered with. He had fallen asleep in the passenger seat with his cap tilted over his eyes. Dave shook him. When James didn't wake, he considered firing the pistol next to his ear, but Uzi bullets in Arizona were rarer than pink dog turds. He merely set the laptop to full sound, plugged it into the radio, and turned on the radio, so the laptop acted as a speaker. James was nearly blasted out of his seat as he awoke to the sound of rock music.

'What the heck, Dave?' James punched Dave lightly on the shoulder when he had cleared his head. 'What's happening?' He pulled his seat back up, as he had set it down low to about the angle of a bed so he could sleep properly. He righted his cap.

'It's time,' said Dave. 'We're going in now, put on your hockey mask.' He threw the slightly cracked mask to James and put the other one over his face. He checked the Micro Uzi - it was loaded with seven bullets. James pulled a sharpened hunting knife out of his pocket.

'All set?' James asked, readjusting his cap. He gripped the handle of the knife.

'Yep.' Dave replied. 'Let's move.' He opened the door of the car and got out, James following. He locked the car and they walked towards the alleyway behind the bike dealership. Dave kept his pistol hidden while walking across the street, but had it immediately drawn once they were in the alley.

The window was still open, but neither of them could reach it.

'I'm going to need a leg up,' said James. 'I'll go inside and open the front door, so wait out there.'

'Yeah, okay.' Dave replied. He gave James a lift up and he climbed through the window. There were bikes everywhere - Kawasaki bikes, Honda bikes, and even a British ER5 that caught his eye. He walked to the glass door on the other side of the room and opened it. Dave walked through. He whistled loudly.

'Look at this lot!' Dave said incredulously. 'This dealership is loaded!' He walked over to the counter and jiggled a hairpin in the lock for the till. There was over fifteen thousand inside.

'Holy cow!' James cried with happiness. 'We could just grab the cash and leave, and we could be rich anyway!' He started filling his pockets with hundred-dollar-bills, while Dave walked over to a few of the bikes and started jiggling his hairpin in their ignitions. Few of them worked, but he got lucky when he tried a 258cc Kawasaki. The engine roared to life and the bright headlamp turned on.

'Turn it off!' James told Dave angrily. 'What if someone looks inside?' He jiggled the hairpin again in the ignition again. Its light faded and the engine halted. James grinned widely.

'I'll be riding the Kawasaki home, thanks,' said James. He too produced a hairpin from his pocket. 'The ignitions on these things are terrible.' Dave opened the glass door at the entrance and wheeled out the ER5 James had noticed earlier.

'I'll put this in the boot of the Lexus,' said Dave. He walked across the road with it and opened the boot for the Lexus. It only just fit - James was surprised it fitted at all.

'Dave, get me the rucksack out of the car,' said James. 'I'll start loading it with the money.' Dave walked back out again and returned with a school bag bearing the logo 'No Fear'. James began stuffing it with hundred-dollar bills. Only three-quarters of the proceeds fit in the sack, so he took off his jacket and put it on the floor and put the remaining money on it before folding it so the money wouldn't fall out.

'Take this with you on the way home,' said James. 'And I just realised - if we sell the ER5 and the Kawasaki we could have thirty thousand under our belts.' He handed the sack and his jacket to Dave.

'Man, we're gonna be so loaded,' Dave said happily, grinning. He walked back out again to the Lexus for the last time to fill it with the money and drive off, closely followed by James who was wheeling out his newly-stolen Kawasaki. Dave turned the key in the ignition of the Lexus and drove off. James poked the hairpin in the Kawasaki, following Dave. Dave checked the time on his watch, which was a stolen Paték Philippe. It was two in the morning. Hopefully the childrens' home they lived in wouldn't notice how late they were out.

They drove happily across the roads, with James often attempting to do a doughnut and failing, then catching up to Dave. They drove for half an hour when Dave heard a siren off in the distance. He pulled out his phone and called James.

James fumbled for his iPhone, steering with one hand so he could hold the phone to his ear with the other. He too had heard the siren.

'What's going on?' Dave asked furiously. 'Someone must have alerted the cops!' Inside the car, Dave turned off the radio and listened more. The siren was getting closer and louder. Dave could see red and blue lights off in the distance if he looked in his mirror.

'I figured,' said James dryly. 'Split up - you go down Thompson Street, I'll go a bit further up and take Solomon road, then we meet back at the Zoo once we have the cops off our tail.' The Zoo was the nickname the care home they lived in had been given by the children inside, and it was a fitting name - it was rowdier than a Zoo with escaped lions and it took you threw hours or so to get to sleep, and then you'd get woken up by somebody blasting their music on the floor below and you needed to threaten to crack their head open to make them stop.

'Yeah, okay,' said Dave. 'I'll be there.' James saw the Lexus turn off to Thompson Street. James went up the road he was currently on for another half kilometre and reached Solomon Road. The cop car was almost a hundred metres behind him, and coming up fast. He twisted the bike handles sharply and turned in Solomon Road. The cop car was almost directly behind him before he had changed his direction, and hadn't had time to chase after him.

The Zoo was a few streets away from there. He sped down a few back alleys and ended up behind the Zoo. James felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He had a text from Dave.

Are you OK?

James turned off the engine of the Kawasaki and wheeled it inside a thick bush. After it was successfully hidden, he texted Dave back.

Yeah.

He walked around to the front of the Zoo and entered. It wasn't as chaotic as usual, because most of the residents were asleep, but there were still kids throwing things at each other and cursing as he walked in the door. He went up three flights of stairs and entered his bedroom which he shared with Dave. Dave was seated in his swivel chair, happily counting the money from the robbery.

'You know what, James?' Dave asked before James could speak.

'What?' James replied.

'We're rich!'

I hope you liked it. I wrote it to get extra credit for an assignment, but then I was like 'hey, maybe I could post this on .'... Here it is. Thanks for reading!


End file.
